They Are Monsters (Deathless Trilogy, #2)

Chapter Twenty Nine: Ghosts We've Seen

The sirens I heard inside the program scream throughout the room, and I assume, the estate. Screams and gunshots temporarily halt as the amplifier's effects settle. All of us who were converted are now back in our bodies, discovering where Gunther placed us on his delusional chess board.

I drop the gun and pat myself down to make sure I'm real. I feel my hands against my body. My real body.

"It's me, Isla, it's Daniel. Are you there?" I look up and see Daniel cautiously reaching out to me, as if I might attack him. His lip bleeds and he holds his shoulder in pain. I must have been fighting him before I drew my weapon, but I feel no pain except for the incision from my implant. Even while I was a cyborg, Daniel didn't hurt me.

I smile. His voice stirs something I thought I would never feel again in the computer. At the heart of me, a pained and joyful tingle rises. "Yes," I cry. "You came back."

The incision behind my ear throbs, but that doesn't stop me from leaping into his arms. He kisses every inch of my face, until I am giggling like a giddy baby in his arms, and he whispers, "Of course I did. We all came back."

An explosion from outside shocks me back into reality.

"That'll be the wall. We've got to go," Daniel says, letting me down. He bends down and picks up my gun. He tucks it into the back of his pants, and says, "I'll trade you," reaching behind the amplifier and revealing the real slingshot my mom and Declan made for me.

"Where'd you—?"

Another explosion sounds from inside the estate, and the screams resume. He takes my hand, "Seriously, we have to go." It's not until he pulls me to the door that I realize he's wearing the black uniform of Deathless soldiers. They're alive. They must be.

Daniel opens the door, and I stand beside him to peek out. Just as I look down the hall, a drone, which had been shooting at some soldiers in Deathless uniforms, flies toward us after being attacked by a formerly implanted soldier. We lean back from the door, narrowly missing one of the propellers slicing our faces off.

"Let's go," Daniel says, arming himself. I load my slingshot, and follow him into the hall.

Soldiers from both sides of this war gather at the bottom of the staircase in the foyer, some fighting, some defending, others just trying to figure out what it means to have a body again. As we make our way toward them, Daniel tells me to check all the labs, so we kick down doors and make sure equipment is being loaded up by the Deathless and that no Scientists have decided to fight back. He kicks down Mechanics, so I kick open Biology.

Deathless soldiers have opened the wall with explosives, and, wearing gas masks to breathe through the debris, are pulling equipment, tables, and supplies from the room out to the Immortal, which waits past the wall. The soldiers stop when they realize I've entered the room, and they point their weapons at me.

"I'm Deathless, it's okay," I say, holding up my arms.

One of the masked soldiers reaches into a pocket on his uniform and reveals a photo. He holds it up to my face, and I check it out in my peripheral vision. It's a black and white photo of me, a screenshot from a surveillance camera on the Immortal. "It's her. It's Isla Blume. We found her," he tells the other men, his voice muffled behind his mask. "Come with me, Isla," he says, reaching for my arm. I pull away.

"No, we're fighting. We fight together."

"What did I tell you?" one of the soldiers asks, coming forward. It's a girl, I can tell by her muffled voice, and the fact she wears Celia's spiked armor. "She would never leave her army," the female soldier says, her raspy voice more clear now that she's closer to me. She removes her mask, and my suspicion is confirmed: It's Nina.